Chanted Prayers
All the essential practices of Kadampa Buddhism are included in a series of sadhana booklets prepared by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and published by Tharpa Publications.
What to expect?
Chanted prayers, or "pujas" are a unique offering. All of these sessions are free of charge and are unguided. At the start of the session, an audio track will play and you can follow along in the prayer booklets which are available when you enter the main meditation room.
"In general, prayers made by an assembly of many practitioners are very powerful and cannot be compared to the prayers of one or two people. The scriptures give the analogy of a broom. If we try to clean a floor with a few bristles we shall make little progress, but if we gather many bristles to make a broom we shall be successful."
Regularly Offered Chanted Prayers
This practice is the heart essence of Kadampa Buddhism. It is the middling length practice, similar to Heart Jewel. In the first part we visualize our Spiritual Guide as Je Tsongkhapa and make prayers and requests to purify negativity, accumulate merit, and receive blessings. Then we make prayers to our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden. Finally, we make a tsog offering.
Through this we can overcome obstacles to our practice and create favorable conditions so that we can nurture and increase our pure Dharma realizations.
You may bring a food offering for this event.
The tsog offering is very important for renewing commitments and averting obstacles. It is a special method through which we come under the care and guidance of the Dakas and Dakinis who bestow completion stage realizations. Our wealth, merit, and great bliss will increase through this practice.
The practice of relying upon a Spiritual Guide, or ‘Guru Yoga’, is the root of the spiritual path and the foundation of all spiritual attainments.
In Kadampa Buddhism, Guru Yoga is practiced in association with Je Tsongkhapa, an emanation of the Wisdom Buddha Manjushri.
The principal Guru Yoga of Je Tsongkhapa is Offering to the Spiritual Guide, which is an extensive practice that is usually performed twice a month, on the 10th and 25th days, at Kadampa Buddhist centers.
You may bring a food offering for this event.
The tsog offering is very important for renewing commitments and averting obstacles. It is a special method through which we come under the care and guidance of the Dakas and Dakinis who bestow completion stage realizations. Our wealth, merit, and great bliss will increase through this practice.
The practices of Heruka body mandala and Vajrayogini are the very essence of Highest Yoga Tantra. They are perfectly suited to our modern world.
Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays
DAKINI YOGA ❯ The middling self-generation sadhana of Vajrayogini
Tuesdays & Thursdays
QUICK PATH TO GREAT BLISS ❯ The extensive self-generation sadhana of Vajrayogini
Before engaging in either of these practices it is necessary to receive an empowerment and instructions from a qualified Spiritual Guide. These empowerments are given every other year at International Kadampa Festivals, and occasionally at other events.
The Tara Puja, Liberation from Sorrow, which includes a special prayer Praises to the Twenty-one Taras composed by Buddha, is performed regularly at Kadampa Buddhist centers worldwide.
Tara is a female Buddha, a manifestation of the ultimate wisdom of all the Buddhas. Each of the Twenty-one Taras is a manifestation of the principal Tara, Green Tara. Tara is also known as the ‘Mother of the Conquerors’.
Powa Ceremony is a beautiful and powerful ritual practice drawn from the Buddhist Tantras that enables us to benefit the deceased by coming together as a group and making prayers and offerings on their behalf. Then, through the power of our compassionate intention, strong prayers, and concentration on the practice, we transfer the consciousness of the deceased to the Pure Land of the Buddha of Compassion so that they will experience a pure and lasting peace and finally be freed from the painful cycle of suffering and its causes. It's a beautiful, very auspicious practice and everyone is welcome to attend.
If you have a loved one who has recently deceased (less than 49 days) and would like them to be included in this meaningful practice, or if you have any questions about the practice [email protected] You may bring a photograph of the deceased; and it is also customary to bring offerings such as candles, soaps, flowers, food, or any beautiful offering of your choosing.
The essence of the practice is to take eight precepts and to keep them purely for a period of twenty-four hours.
By doing this practice again and again, we acquaint ourself with the practice of moral discipline and thereby make our human life meaningful.
We receive many great benefits from practicing moral discipline in this way. It helps us to solve the problems of this life by avoiding the causes of suffering; and it creates the cause for us to take fortunate rebirths in future lives and thereby protects us from the sufferings of lower rebirth.
In particular, because it is performed with bodhichitta motivation, this practice is very powerful for purifying negative karma. It accumulates a vast collection of merit and creates the cause for us to attain the unsurpassed happiness of enlightenment.
We first need to receive these precepts from a qualified Preceptor, and then we can take them on our own as often as we wish. Instructions on both these methods are included in this sadhana.
If we wish to take the essence of this precious human life we should strive to engage in this practice as often as we can.
An explanation of the practice
When we take the eight Mahayana precepts, we explicitly promise to abstain for twenty-four hours from eight actions:
- Killing
- Stealing
- Sexual activity
- Lying
- Taking intoxicants
- Eating after lunch
- Sitting on high or luxurious thrones or seats
- Wearing ornaments, perfume, etc, and singing and dancing, etc.
These eight, however, are merely symbolic, for in reality we promise to abstain from all non-virtuous actions for twenty-four hours.
Taking and keeping these precepts is a special purification practice. Buddha realized that all living beings’ suffering comes from their previous negative karma, and so he taught special practices to purify it.
To purify our negative karma we must practice the four opponent powers: the power of regret, the power of reliance, the power of the opponent force, and the power of promise. These are explained fully in Joyful Path of Good Fortune. Within these four, we are here emphasizing the power of promise – promising not to repeat non-virtuous actions.
There are many levels on which we can make this promise. We can promise not to commit non-virtuous actions for the rest of our life, for a year, for a month, for a week, or, in this case, for a day.
If we manage to keep our actions of body, speech, and mind pure for one day we can then extend it to two days, then to three days, and so on, until eventually we can keep pure moral discipline all the time.
If we reach the point when we can keep our actions of body, speech, and mind completely pure all the time, we shall have accomplished the Pure Land. With a pure body and a pure mind there is no basis for experiencing suffering; instead we shall experience only unceasing happiness from within.
We all want to be happy – living in a pure environment with pure friends, pure enjoyments, and so on – but this is unattainable for as long as we have negative karma in our minds.
Therefore, we need to rely upon Buddha’s skilful method for purifying our negative karma. This practice is very simple, and it lasts for only a day at a time; but it leads to very great results.
Venue
Kadampa Meditation Center LA
4953 Franklin Ave Los Angeles, CA
Free street parking is available
Health & Safety
Masks are optional
Moderate spacing between seats
Air purifiers + Fresh airflow
Community
Livestream Info
- The class is available livestream. Access link can be found above
- No video replay is available for chanted prayer sessions
Kadampa Meditation Center LA
4953 Franklin Ave.
Getting to the Center
Getting to the Center is simple. We're on the corner of Franklin Ave and Kenmore in the neighborhood of Los Feliz. Street parking is available in the surrounding neighborhoods, usually within a block or two of the Center's front door.